Neural Dust Research Articles

Microscale Infrared Technologies for Spectral Filtering and Wireless Neural Dust

Microscale Infrared Technologies for Spectral Filtering and Wireless Neural Dust

Astellas will buy the neural-dust start-up Iota

Astellas will buy the neural-dust start-up Iota

Astellas to acquire neural dust start-up Iota Biosciences

Astellas to acquire neural dust start-up Iota Biosciences

Body Dust: Well Beyond Wearable and Implantable Sensors

Over the last 20 years, the field of Smart Dust has been proposed and demonstrated. Almost in the same period, implantable and wearable sensors for human monitoring have been actually successfully introduced in the market. The present research about Smart Dust is actually in the field of Dust for brain applications (Neural Dust) or for metabolism monitoring (Body Dust). Aim of this feature article is to review all the developments presented so far in literature, and then define the next steps and challenges. First, we see the field of Smart Dust and, then, its application to human sensing. The paper starts from details about the early phases of the research in the area, and first developments. Then, it reviews the recent advancements in the field, for then closing with the definition of the still-open challenges for realizing motes that could spread in human body as thousands of individual sensors in a kind of sensing active network capable to provide telemetry from inside the body. The Body Dust concept discussed in this article is well beyond the present concepts of wearable or implantable devices. These last are actually entering into the market to provide personalized and more precise medicine to human health, while the Body Dust concept definitely represents the future of humans monitoring, still opens to scientific explorations.

A Contemporary Research on Perceptual Expert System for Medical Diagnosis through Neural Dust Sensor

Abstract In the past few years many researches have been dedicated towards Neural dust sensor such as Deep Brain Simulation (DBS), Brain Machine interface (BMI), Ultrasonic backscattering system and so on. Mainly the Brain-Machine Interface is considered as the neural interface system that can be usable for a lifetime and to increase the life span of the sensor with the implementation of wireless electromagnetic neural interface. By implementing all this to detect the blood clot in human brain and to reduce the blood clot using ultrasonic waves and further other implementation in medical field. And, Neural Dust sensor is considered as the central nervous system of a particular system. This study aims to provide a review on usage of neural dust sensor in medical diagnosis.

Ethical considerations on novel neuronal interfaces.

Wireless powered implants, each smaller than a grain of rice, have the potential to scan and stimulate brain cells. Further research may lead to next-generation brain-machine interfaces for controlling prosthetics, exoskeletons, and robots, as well as "electroceuticals" to treat disorders of the brain and body. In conditions that can be particularly alleviated with brain stimulation, the use of such mini devices may pose certain challenges. Health professionals are becoming increasingly more accountable in decision-making processes that have impacts on the life quality of individuals. It is possible to transmit such stimulation using remote control principles. Perhaps, the most important concern regarding the use of these devices termed as "neural dust" is represented by the possibility of controlling affection and other mental functions via waves reaching the brain using more advanced versions of such devices. This will not only violate the respect for authority principle of ethics, but also medical ethics, and may potentially lead to certain incidents of varying vehemence that may be considered illegal. Therefore, a sound knowledge and implementation of ethical principles is becoming a more important issue on the part of healthcare professionals. In both the ethical decision-making process and in ethical conflicts, it may be useful to re-appraise the principles of medical ethics. In this article, the ethical considerations of these devices are discussed.

Rodent wearable ultrasound system for wireless neural recording.

Advances in minimally-invasive, distributed biological interface nodes enable possibilities for networks of sensors and actuators to connect the brain with external devices. The recent development of the neural dust sensor mote has shown that utilizing ultrasound backscatter communication enables untethered sub-mm neural recording devices. These implanted sensor motes require a wearable external ultrasound interrogation device to enable in-vivo, freely-behaving neural interface experiments. However, minimizing the complexity and size of the implanted sensors shifts the power and processing burden to the external interrogator. In this paper, we present an ultrasound backscatter interrogator that supports real-time backscatter processing in a rodent-wearable, completely wireless device. We demonstrate a generic digital encoding scheme which is intended for transmitting neural information. The system integrates a front-end ultrasonic interface ASIC with off-the-shelf components to enable a highly compact ultrasound interrogation device intended for rodent neural interface experiments but applicable to other model systems.

Wireless Recording in the Peripheral Nervous System with Ultrasonic Neural Dust

The emerging field of bioelectronic medicine seeks methods for deciphering and modulating electrophysiological activity in the body to attain therapeutic effects at target organs. Current approaches to interfacing with peripheral nerves and muscles rely heavily on wires, creating problems for chronic use, while emerging wireless approaches lack the size scalability necessary to interrogate small-diameter nerves. Furthermore, conventional electrode-based technologies lack the capability to record from nerves with high spatial resolution or to record independently from many discrete sites within a nerve bundle. Here, we demonstrate neural dust, a wirelessand scalable ultrasonic backscatter system forpowering and communicating with implanted bioelectronics. We show that ultrasound is effectiveatdelivering power to mm-scale devices in tissue; likewise, passive, battery-less communication usingbackscatter enables high-fidelity transmission of electromyogram (EMG) and electroneurogram (ENG) signals from anesthetized rats. These results highlight the potential for an ultrasound-based neural interface system for advancing future bioelectronics-based therapies.

Ultrasonic beamforming system for interrogating multiple implantable sensors.

In this paper, we present an ultrasonic beamforming system capable of interrogating individual implantable sensors via backscatter in a distributed, ultrasound-based recording platform known as Neural Dust [1]. A custom ASIC drives a 7 × 2 PZT transducer array with 3 cycles of 32V square wave with a specific programmable time delay to focus the beam at the 800mm neural dust mote placed 50mm away. The measured acoustic-to-electrical conversion efficiency of the receive mote in water is 0.12% and the overall system delivers 26.3% of the power from the 1.8V power supply to the transducer drive output, consumes 0.75μJ in each transmit phase, and has a 0.5% change in the backscatter per volt applied to the input of the backscatter circuit. Further miniaturization of both the transmit array and the receive mote can pave the way for a wearable, chronic sensing and neuromodulation system.

Model validation of untethered, ultrasonic neural dust motes for cortical recording

A major hurdle in brain–machine interfaces (BMI) is the lack of an implantable neural interface system that remains viable for a substantial fraction of the user's lifetime. Recently, sub-mm implantable, wireless electromagnetic (EM) neural interfaces have been demonstrated in an effort to extend system longevity. However, EM systems do not scale down in size well due to the severe inefficiency of coupling radio-waves at those scales within tissue. This paper explores fundamental system design trade-offs as well as size, power, and bandwidth scaling limits of neural recording systems built from low-power electronics coupled with ultrasonic power delivery and backscatter communication. Such systems will require two fundamental technology innovations: (1) 10–100μm scale, free-floating, independent sensor nodes, or neural dust, that detect and report local extracellular electrophysiological data via ultrasonic backscattering and (2) a sub-cranial ultrasonic interrogator that establishes power and communication links with the neural dust. We provide experimental verification that the predicted scaling effects follow theory; (127μm)3 neural dust motes immersed in water 3cm from the interrogator couple with 0.002064% power transfer efficiency and 0.04246ppm backscatter, resulting in a maximum received power of ∼0.5μW with ∼1nW of change in backscatter power with neural activity. The high efficiency of ultrasonic transmission can enable the scaling of the sensing nodes down to 10s of micrometer. We conclude with a brief discussion of the application of neural dust for both central and peripheral nervous system recordings, and perspectives on future research directions.

Neural dust particles could one day be used to monitor brain activity

Neural dust particles could one day be used to monitor brain activity